


make sure you remember everything

by books_and_spite



Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Sequence, During Canon, Gen, One Shot, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29958201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/books_and_spite/pseuds/books_and_spite
Summary: you say you wish me well without you, but something about you tells me that you know.(when you took it all, you forgot yourshadow.)Over time they stop being the Sader siblings.And then they become Good and Evil.And then they’re nothing at all.
Relationships: August Sader & Evelyn Sader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	make sure you remember everything

**Author's Note:**

> I want the Sader casting Paul Feig sir give me the Sader casting I am no longer asking 🔪🔪 (for legal reasons this is a joke)  
> Title and description from _Shadow_ by Sam Tsui.

_a start:_

_saffron;_

Evelyn doesn’t start off wearing red. Or blue. Her dresses, at the start, are bright yellow; flowers spun in her hair, around her neck. She blends into the sunlight, brighter than golden fields, brighter than the worlds they can open up sometimes. Her smile is lighter then. More carefree. More youthful. 

August thinks: _my sister is not going to be Evil._

He’s wrong, of course. He usually is when it comes to her. 

But he looks at Evelyn and all he can see is youth, and he looks at her and all he can do is hopelessly, helplessly believe that there’s still something worth saving there. That his sister, his laughing, carefree sister, is still alive. 

She stops wearing yellow by second year. 

_sanguine;_

Neither of them know what blood really looks like- no, that’s a lie. But not now, not now that they have some measure of freedom; blood is not a usual sight anymore. Still- August slips and falls, cuts himself on a sharp rock and unsteadily gets back up. Red is trickling down from just below his eye, like he’s crying tears of blood. Evelyn has never had the way with words he does, but it can’t be mistaken for anything else. 

He smiles and goes on walking as she tries to wipe it away, says it’s _fine_ , but the blood is still welling after a while. August shakes it off-

The blood goes away eventually. The wound doesn’t. 

The scar is like a teardrop, maybe that’s why for so long afterwards he looks at her like he’s going to burst into tears. 

_scelerat;_

Oh, this tale she knows by heart- the evil lady in love with the evil king, who will do anything to preserve that love, who will do anything to preserve her favour in his eyes. They always die because that’s how Nevermore works, because the _boys_ are always given the good endings. Or no one at all, in Evil’s case. 

That’s not who she is. That’s never been who she is. 

The villain has to be alone. 

(She isn’t. Does that make her less of a villain or a better one, for being able to walk away?)

There is no place for a hopeless younger brother who knows too many fancy words and sees too many strange things in her world. Not anymore. 

_scriptory;_

(Stupid writer brother that he is.)

Well. Not a writer because he doesn’t tell stories anymore. He’s too old for that now, too knowing and too serious to believe in those. 

Life is a story, really, all of it; that’s enough for him. It has to be enough because his whole life _nothing_ has ever been enough. No sight. No friends. Now no sister. 

It will be enough for him, then. Just keep on writing. Just keep on dreaming up the past and the future. 

It’s not so bad, most of the time. 

(He doesn’t talk about the rest of it.)

(The rest of it is watching himself write people into death, and that is something he’s never been able to shake.)

_semantics;_

That’s the way it goes; you say something and you claim that’s not what you mean but it was. It always was. And you lie and you cheat and you hurt and all it ever does for you is push you further away from the brother you once held so dearly. 

There is no moral high ground here. Not even Good or Evil. Why are you still trying so hard to hide? Why don’t you just _be?_

What is _wrong_ with you, Evelyn Sader?

(She keeps on _saying_ that she doesn’t mean things but really. It doesn’t matter if you mean something or not.)

(It matters how much it _hurts.)_

(But hurt is how Evil shows its love so really. He should know better. Evelyn will _show_ him better, someday. Because after all this while, even though he forgave them, even though he was the Seer- they’re still siblings. And for some godforsaken reason his pleas are hurting her.) 

It’s a physical hurt that isn’t meant to be physical, but is so _damn_ strong you can feel it anyway. August is in pain. And so is she. 

He’s her brother-

Well maybe she doesn’t _want_ a brother anymore. 

_selcouth;_

There is, August decides, something just a little bit _off_ about him. Like a wish that doesn’t quite come true, or does but in the completely _wrong_ way. Like there’s a crack in his chassis somewhere. 

He’s not a fool. He can tell when people veer away from him and his too-sharp eyes and he doesn’t fault them for doing so. Of course he wouldn't. Of _course._

There is a destiny somewhere out there for him to fulfill, for him to craft a path towards. Just him and his sister, maybe, and the difference. And that’s okay. And the future is not that far away. 

(Maybe that’s why, when Evelyn smiles at him and turns to her new Never friends, it doesn’t hurt. He knew it would happen.)

(Liar; it hurts anyway.)

_sepia;_

Does her brother know that his eyes are changing?

Evelyn doesn’t think so but they _are_. They flicker, sometimes, like he can’t decide what colour they should be. Hazel turns to chocolate turns to almost golden and then back again. He feels too much, his power is quite literally pouring out of him, and this is… slightly terrifying.

They haven’t really been friends for a while now. She’s not going to tell him. Someone else will, eventually. When they see him.

(If she approaches him. Well. Neither of them would like it very much. He may wish to get her back but that would only end in _tears.)_

(They look nothing alike in the first place, but those eyes make him look alien. This isn’t her brother. Hasn’t been for a long time.) 

It takes a while before she realises that maybe she _did_ inherit some measure of sight because- she’s the only one who can see it.

That fact unnerves her.

_sibyl;_

It’s not _fair_ that she gets to see and hear dreams and he doesn’t, but it’s also not _fair_ that he’s a seer and she isn’t. Life isn’t fair. August thinks that is not a very good excuse. 

But again it’s not _fair_ that she resents him for it, it’s not his _fault_ that he was born with the universe in his eyes and she wasn’t. 

Not his fault.

And yet he finds himself forgiving her over and over and over again. Because for all her flaws she is still his sister. His older sister, and there has to be something left of that.

In fourth year, they meet again at graduation. She’s taller than him, still, two years gives you that boost- and she sits next to him and says _you are not my brother. And you’re going to die alone._

It’s like a physical stab to the heart the way he feels it. The way a dozen different _dreams_ shatter all at once.

_You’re going to die alone._

Well. That one turns out to be true. Wouldn’t she have been happy to know that. That she could _see._

This is the love language of siblings: jealousy and resentment and life getting in between you. Sniping at each other for lifetimes over the ever-widening gap. Wishing death. And wishing _life._

Well. They go on, anyway. _You and me_. 

_seraphic;_

They pick and choose their sides, Good and Evil and maybe, just maybe, in between. You have a nature, that much is true, but it doesn’t define you. You can run. 

But they don’t because _you don’t run from what you want to be._

August chooses Good, of course, every time; he chooses the side of love and care and solidarity. (The side of discrimination and elitism and power plays, too. You ignore that if you want to survive. _Hypocrites,_ all of them.)

Evelyn goes to Evil, like she was meant to. Deceit and villainy and treachery, but for all they play up their reputation, there are no real secrets. She, at least, knows exactly where she stands.

That’s where they differ, she supposes. August looked at them growing up and convinced himself that if he only tried hard enough, did well enough, he would get out of the mess their parents had made. Evelyn looked at them growing up and didn’t think of getting out. She thought of tearing them apart from the inside out.

Long gone now. Still so angry.

August, the dutiful son, the perfect child, forgave it long ago. Dedicated himself to everything else instead. What does he see that he still manages to _believe?_

Her brother, she thinks, is an angel among humankind. 

(But demons are fallen angels, too.) 

(She could be so much more. She _is_ so much more, already.)

_solar;_

To be fair, the first time she tries to kill him is only in third year. To be honest, his sister should not be trying to kill him at all. 

But she does, somehow, getting him to the Blue Forest under false pretenses and then unleashing everything in her power. Spells. _Curses._ Evelyn Sader is _good_ at magic. She’s _good_ at everything. 

She’s _wonderful_ at manipulating people. Which is why she manages to catch him off-guard, pull on his dreams, use his memories of her against him. 

Because she can hear wishes. And his heart’s desire is to just stop _fighting._

“You _could_ stop fighting if you _died.”_

And she keeps on coming. And she really _is_ going to kill him and he is _terrified_ because _this isn’t how it goes-_

Of _course_ it isn’t how it goes. Of course not. He knows this story. 

He knows how it ends. 

The sun shines upon him, and August Sader _fights back._

He is the light. He is. He _is-_

_selenic;_

It’s him who nearly kills her instead, blinding and fiery and furious; the only reason she survives is because like a coward she runs away. He can’t kill her. He’d never kill her, pathetic as he is. But all the same he can still hurt her. 

Nothing is stopping him from hurting her. There has to be a line and she has to have crossed it over and over again. 

But this is a losing game and they will keep on playing, because neither will be able to kill the other but neither will stop trying. Evelyn attacks. August defends. Evil and Good, an everlasting cycle of blood and hatred and tears. 

He is the sun and she is the moon. The less important counterpart. Less bright. Lesser in general.

Well if he is the sun then she will chase after it forever just to tear it down. No matter if it burns her to dust. 

She will _not_ be second best. 

_stellar;_

There’s a third point to the trifecta, really. That’s why it has the prefix _tri._ Three. Sun, moon, stars. If the sun and the moon are the antithesis of each other, then the stars are what bind them. 

August has never seen a star. Not in visions. Or dreams. He guesses it’s not considered important to see them. 

But he dreams of walking in the sky, flying above everything else if only for a split second. He dreams of the invisible starscape. He dreams of coldness and brightness and wisdom and faith. 

The stars don’t seem so far away when you’re blind. You don’t know how distant they are. 

He wonders if Evelyn would love him again if he brought down the stars. She likes them. Or _liked_ them. As children she’d watch meteor showers, study constellations, while he- read books. He misses that. Misses the sheer _familiarity._

If he brought down a star. Maybe everything would be alright again. Maybe they would go on. 

But he can’t do that. 

He can’t steal a star and he can’t steal back his past.

And that’s the bitter truth, no matter how much he dislikes it. 

_sacrosanct;_

But the thing is that she _can’t_ love him. Not now. Not when he’s Good and she’s Evil.

That’s not how it _works._

That’s not what the world says. 

(In retrospect, this is just another excuse.)

She doesn’t _care,_ Evil doesn’t _love,_ and that’s that. 

(She can’t leave. They’re bound together. The Sader siblings. They always have been.)

_solace;_

You know what people say. Rest in peace and all that. 

He has his life and the life of everyone in the goddamn Woods planned out, and he _should_ be at peace by now. He should be able to rest easy, enjoy his remaining- twenty? Thirty?- years. 

Nothing’s going to change that now. 

Still. There _will_ be no rest until his sister is dead. Or he dies himself. Whichever comes first. 

This is the one thing he chooses not to see: Evelyn dying. 

Siblings stick together. Even if they’re both struggling to claim victory for opposing sides.

He _knows_ they will stick together. That’s how fate works. Eventually she’ll find her way back to him. Or he’ll find his way back to her. No matter how it ends. 

So August waits.

He can see the future, but it isn’t _his._ And it never has been. 

(He has no one. Well. That’s not quite true. He has _her-)_

She leaves, too. Like everyone does. 

The world is quiet. Too quiet.

_serendipity;_

They _are_ bound, all right. It is a bond made of destiny and a bond made of blood and you cannot break it if the other side doesn’t want to.

He invites her back, of course. Back to the School. And she agrees because no one in their right mind would reject an invitation to teach at the School for Good and Evil. 

It’s not so bad, there. August teaches in Good. Lesso- _Leonora_ Lesso, she knows now- is an ally. A friend. And having Evil’s youngest ever Dean as an ally will be beneficial. And then there’s the School Master. 

The School Master who she _knows_ could be her one true love. If only she tried hard enough. 

(She’ll show them. She’ll _show_ him. Life is unfair- no reason why she shouldn’t play dirty, either.)

Not so bad, indeed. 

(This is the beginning of the end.) 

(When August brushes past her in the hallways he flinches away. _Good.)_

It doesn’t last long. But she gains a promise, and a gift, and a child- _two_ children.

And she gains her assurance that she _will_ make an impact. 

_silence;_

They are each other’s antithesis, really. And yet they still imprint themselves so painfully obviously on each other. 

Lesso dislikes August because she hated Evelyn, but they were never particularly close in the first place. But Clarissa- his _friend-_ she would have killed Evelyn in a heartbeat and August is on the receiving end of it for a while, after Evelyn is gone. She apologises but they will not forget so easily, because Evelyn Sader is a ghost haunting them all. Waiting to emerge from the shadows. 

The only person who _doesn’t_ treat him like Evelyn’s brother is _Rafal._ The School Master. He knows the School Master’s name and she doesn’t. 

That isn’t an accomplishment. 

He wants to be _heard_ again, he wants to be _seen_ again, anything to stop being called _the evicted one’s brother. The one who brought her here._

It was _destiny._

(Or maybe he was just being selfish.)

(But everything has a purpose. He has to believe that.)

What’s his, then?

_severance;_

Something is gone, after she leaves. Something weak. 

They don’t come into contact. Evelyn retreats, and August apparently pretends that she doesn’t exist. She keeps up with the news through her butterflies and her… less known abilities- Lesso grows colder, Dovey less trusting, the School Master in his silver tower watches, amused as ever. 

And August. Well, he quiets, he matures, he grows wiser. More distant. 

_Saint_ August, why _wouldn’t_ he distance himself?

It’s not like he has anyone left. 

So she lets him stay in his precious School, take her position, take her old life; it’s fine. 

She’ll wait. 

Across the kingdoms, somewhere, her brother dreams of searing green and deep blue.

(She can wait. Life will catch up eventually. They both know it will.)

_sanctify;_

They don’t meet again. 

August martyrs himself in the service of Rhian. He was always meant to. And his death, and Rafal’s, sets into motion the grand tale of Sophie and Agatha. 

But he is seared into the School now, burned into its very heart; he _is_ the School. He is its embodiment. He is everything and nothing and he is a myth, he is a hero, he is completely, undeniably _Good._

But it’s okay, they’re okay, and nothing hurts anymore. He has his recordings, his guides, the Woods are as _safe_ as he could make them. And eventually it will be.

It’s not about Evelyn Sader. It was never about her. 

And then he’s dead. 

His memory lives on; the professor, the seer, the saviour.

(Evelyn will never know him as anything else.)

_scintillant;_

She follows him. 

They both go out in flames, at the end of the day; burned up or burnt out, pure energy. 

Evelyn looks at her murderer, her true love, the person she spent _years_ dedicating herself to- he who she sacrificed everything for. Including August. 

Who sacrificed himself against him, too. 

_I guess you were right, little brother,_ she thinks bitterly, and her eyes fill with tears for a split second, and then. 

And then she’s dying. Dust in the wind, sapphires and rubies and golden tears all exploding. She didn’t see August die but she _knows_ that he was nothing but golden. 

(Of course he would be. Her brother. Her painfully _Good_ brother.)

(Even _now_ she still won’t forgive him.)

_(I’m_ **_sorry.)_ **

_(You are not my brother.)_

She will die this way. 

In the end they shine from the inside out; in the end they are starbursts and sparks set alight. 

In the end it still isn’t enough to save them. 

_somnial;_

Death is a long, long sleep from which you never wake up. Death is a dream that never ends. Death is a nightmare. Death is a hope. 

Death is _not_ a saviour. 

And in the end it was only a dream that they could ever be saved-

_sacrifice;_

-because you can’t run, because there is always a purpose behind your life and _this wasn’t theirs,_ because they would hurt and hurt and hurt and it still wouldn’t be _enough_ to change the course of destiny colliding.

This is their burden, the Sader siblings; they are so crucial to the story that they can never live out their own. 

Death comes on swan wings to welcome them. Maybe home. Maybe not. It comes all the same.

* * *

_Storian;_

They die, but the Sader line lives on. 

Two siblings. One Good, one Evil. At war. 

And then they die as well, one by his brother’s hand, the other by the hand of the One True King that was prophesied by the Good sibling before them. Of _course._ Fate works in ways no one can understand. But it _works_. 

A cycle; begun; broken. 

(And so it ends.) 

* * *

_slain;_

_story;_

_sibling;_

~~_Sader._ ~~

**Author's Note:**

> how have you been doing?


End file.
